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ON Amber Dermont reviews Stephanie Fiorelli, Adam Koehler, line and Andrew Palmer, eds. Av e r y : Matthew Roberson reviews An An t h o l o g y o f Fabrice Rozié, Esther Allen, and Guy Walter, eds. Ne w Fi c t i o n Avery House Press As Yo u We r e Say i n g : Am e r i c a n Wr i t e r s Re s p o n d t o “The great pleasure is in seeing Th e i r Fr e n c h Co n t e m p o r a r i e s how the short fiction tradition is built upon, skewed, and subverted.” Dalkey Archive Press

“As You Were Saying is a successful adventure in illustrating the Gabriel Cutrufello reviews unpredictable pleasures of encounter, Richard Katrovas dialogue, and connection.” Th e Ye a r s o f Sm a s h i n g Br i c k s : An An e c d o t a l Me m o i r

Bruce Holsapple reviews Carnegie Mellon University Press ; , ed. “Katrovas at times seems to be dressing up over-sentimentalized Th e Co l l e c t e d Po e m s o f memories of a painful young Ph i l i p Wh a l e n adulthood with seemingly profound observations.” Wesleyan University Press

“This poet is a master in the use of self-regard.” Stephen Burn reviews J. Peder Zane, ed.

Th e To p Te n : Wr i t e r s Pi c k Th e i r Sam Truitt reviews Hannah Weiner; Fa v o r i t e Bo o k s Patrick F. Durgin, ed. Norton Ha n n a h We i n e r ’s “With the right writer, the list can Op e n Ho u s e be a revealing window on to their Kenning Editions formative influences.”

“A great boon of Hannah Weiner’s Open House lies in gathering her career-wide formal inflections in one place for the first time.” The Human Line Marilyn Kallet reviews ELLEN BASS Ellen Bass

Th e Hu m a n Li n e Kirby Olson reviews Copper Canyon Press Tony Trigilio “The Human Line is a Al l e n Gi n s b e r g ’s well-made prayer for peace u d d h i s t o e t i c s B P in the guise of art.” Southern Illinois University Press

“Ginsberg’s aggression toward Buddhism needs to be carefully positioned when we think of Ginsberg as a ‘Buddhist.’”

LineOnLine announces reviews abr featured exclusively on ABR’s website. Innovation Never Sleeps @ July–August 2008 29.5 line ONline http://americanbookreview.org

Re a d a n d Re s p o n d Matthew Roberson

digression, closure—what- As Yo u We r e Say i n g : ever reaction the initial text Am e r i c a n Wr i t e r s Re s p o n d t o inspired.” Th e i r Fr e n c h Co n t e m p o r a r i e s The results: Luckily, everything one would hope Edited by Fabrice Rozié, Esther Allen, to find with these writers and and Guy Walter these premises. In the Dar- Dalkey Archive Press rieussecq/Moody piece, a http://www.dalkeyarchive.com female, first-person narrator 112 pages; paper, $9.50 recounts her complicated, even pathological, love for a horribly disfigured man—a As You Were Saying: American Writers Re- love that centers on his inju- spond to Their French Contemporaries opens with ries and diminishes when he a preface by Jean-David Lévitte, French Ambassador receives cosmetic surgery that to the US. makes him more “normal.” Yes, the French Ambassador to the US—writing We then receive an inter- a preface to a Dalkey Archive Press collection of estingly skewed version of short fictions, writing that he actually worries about events from the point of view the unwillingness of American publishers to list of the male character, who translated books, writing about the need to reverse desires to become “normal” this trend, so that French authors, in particular, can mostly because he resents the “reach new readers…[and] be read in translation in pity fueling his partner’s love. the U.S.” In both, a shared focus on the And, it seems as if Lévitte (not some consultant depths of characters, and on copywriter) actually wrote the piece—and as if, as he the psychology of attraction, says, he himself really loves “books and was educated and love, and even the power by reading literature from all over the world.” of fetish. Let’s compare this to the latest “Op/Ed” Equally cooperative released by the US Ambassador to France, Craig about exploring common Roberts Stapleton. In it, he does not celebrate the ar- characters and themes—Lau- rival of a new American intellectual effort in France; rens and Olen Butler, who rather, he cheers about an upcoming visit from “an created a unified piece that American vessel not seen in a French port since May starts with a lyrically beautiful 2001: an aircraft carrier.” No kidding. recitation on the many, many things for which one woman As You Were Saying is a successful waits, and then builds to a ton- adventure in illustrating the ally different, yet equally charged, dramatic scene perhaps, all the other of the book’s texts. Why, one that reveals why she waits, and waits, and waits; and might speculate, didn’t these writers draw together unpredictable pleasures of encounter, Bouillier and Everett, who pass a narrative thread in expected ways? Why—on the American side of dialogue, and connection. almost seamlessly to explore the desire driving one the partnership—did Federman and Ducornet fix on man’s obsessive pursuit of an unavailable woman. those details from which they spun out seemingly Okay. Point made, and maybe it’s an easy point, Some pieces take different, but equally engag- tangential responses? (Or are those responses actu- even a cheap shot, but it deserves making because it ing approaches—those by Claudel and Hemon, for ally tangential or simply more subtly drawn than this suggests that while a variety of writers will attempt to example, trace narratives tied more by context or reader realizes?) These stories encourage thought create interesting, thoughtful, and successful art—art theme than specific characters or plot. In Claudel’s about not just cooperation and collaboration but that develops communication and collaboration be- piece, we receive the story of the sterility of upper- about difference and determined autonomy. tween cultures—only some of them have the genuine middle-class life. In Hemon’s follow up, one im- In other words, As You Were Saying succeeds interest and encouragement of their social leaders. migrant man’s struggle to achieve just such station in all the ways one of its editors, Esther Allen, hoped So we find, in a way, only one voice in what (the flaws of which he can’t know). Or, Lang’s and it would, as a successful adventure in varieties of should have been the first collaborative part of this Wideman’s pieces have in common, mostly, shared talents illustrating the unpredictable pleasures of book. images and styles. encounter, dialogue, and connection. Not so, of course, in the book’s remaining A few of the pieces don’t seem to connect. But does the book somehow succeed in illus- conversations, where French authors Marie Dar- From Roubaud’s version of a classical puzzle, the trating successful cross-cultural collaborations— rieussecq, Camille Laurens, Jacques Roubaud, Lydie Josephus problem, in which is posed the question of challenging French writers to find their particular Salvayre, Grégoire Bouillier, Philippe Claudel, and how a soldier not only survives certain death in battle, beginnings and American writers to somehow negoti- Luc Lang compose joint texts with American writ- but in doing so, impresses his victorious enemies so ate approaches they wouldn’t have necessarily taken ers (respectively) Rick Moody, Robert Olen Butler, well that they spare him afterward, Federman (from or even considered, perhaps in a distinctly American , Rikki Ducornet, Percival Ev- France, though now an American writing in English, way? Or do the pieces begin with but then escape erett, Aleksandar Hemon, and . mostly) draws only the idea of death, and carcasses, national differences, making something outside our Two more-than-impressive groups working together as fuel for his (exceedingly funny) riff on resurrec- usual categories? Yes, and yes, it seems, though this (with the help of translators) under the following, tion. From Salvayre’s tale of a brilliant, ugly man’s reader doesn’t dare say more, for fear of revealing very open-ended arrangement: “The French novel- pursuit of a dumb, beautiful woman, Ducornet seems his inadequate and likely stereotypical assumptions ists [composed] the first part of each text, which to have only taken the idea of a beautiful woman—in about both cultures. Best read it yourself. Do. [was] then translated into English and given to the her story a whore now past her prime. Interestingly Americans,” who responded “to it in any way at all: enough, however, these seemingly disconnected sto- FC2 will publish Matthew Roberson’s new novel, continuation, variation, juxtaposition, contradiction, ries don’t disappoint; they, in fact, intrigue more than, Impotent, in spring 2009.

July–August 2008 Page 1 L Gr a p h o f a Mi n d Mo v i n g Bruce Holsapple

statement-based poetry to a nonrepresentational be Th e Co l l e c t e d Po e m s o f mode focused on invention, a heuristic procedure punched, cracks made in it to release the Ph i l i p Wh a l e n often taking the lyric subject itself as its object. That power, beauty, whatever; the act Philip Whalen is, the poetry is not grounded in representations of breaks us, a radical force like sex not lightly Edited by Michael Rothenberg self nor in statements about the world, for instance, to be used. assertions of value, but rather in “motions” of the Foreword by The poems are not so much expressions of an mind as it composes. The following is also from Introduction by authorial self as kinds of exploration, involving loos- 1959, from a new kind of poem. Wesleyan University Press ening from one’s intentions, akin to Jackson Pollack’s http://www.wesleyan.edu/wespress Tuned in on my own frequency drip paintings and John Cage’s compositions. The 932 pages; cloth, $49.95 I watch myself looking poems don’t aspire to elegance and monumentality, Lying abed late in the morning even with the book-length Scenes of Life at the Capi- With music, thinking of Y. tal (1970). They are deliberately fluid, deliberately At 932 pages, Philip Whalen’s Collected Po- Salal manzanita ferns grasses & grey sky block skewed, loosey-goosey. Yet there are moments of ems sprawls like a multi-colored, often magical, rag the window great concision and finesse: “Sadly unroll sleeping- carpet. The book gathers work from 1947 through Mossy ground bag: // The missing lid for teapot!” 1997 and includes, thankfully, dozens of Whalen’s Another noticeable trait is Whalen’s recurrent hand-drawn texts. It’s clearly a labor of love, ed- I think what is thinking focus on this, the poems chockfull with detail, for ited by poet Michael Rothenberg, who co-edited What is that use or motion of the mind that he writes within a context of the writing itself, plus Whalen’s selected poems, Overtime (1999), with compares with what’s directly impinging on him, rather than a per- Whalen (nearly blind), and cared for the poet in his A wink, the motion of the belly spective imagined beyond this, in order “to have the final years. Many poems will be new to readers; actual issue of the poem,” as puts it, hundreds were never widely available, so that even Beside the highway “in the poem as [he’s] writing it.” This heightened those familiar with Whalen will discover him over Young bullock savages the self-regard generally saves Whalen from being again. There’s a short, fetching remembrance by Gary lower branches ponderous, for there are few moments without self- Snyder, and a provocative introduction by Leslie of a big cedar tree deprecating humor; and within those moments are Scalapino, arguing that Whalen and other Beats work As his work evolves, there’s an increasing use of subtle renditions of fallibility, renditions central to to eradicate barriers, for instance, between the person association, fragmentation, and juxtaposition—parts his innovations on that lyric subject. “Thank God, I perceiving and the world perceived (as text). These held deliberately in abeyance, usually without an don’t have to write a poem” he begins, in “Birthday poets also, I’d add, were part of a shift in sensibility ordering message. This is a poetry of diversity rather Poem”: that led to wide-scale experimentation—in art, life- than unification. That is also to say, one rarely knows style, sex, and drugs—and to the cultural explosion All those primulas raving potted hybrids where a poem is headed, for Whalen exploits every of the 1960s, a legacy of the modernist “crisis of the Mossy brim of brick fish pond dimension of poetic progression. subject.” “How do you like your world,” as Whalen once quipped. I keep trying to live as if this world were heaven Only the biggest yellow-flowering one puke fish dark fish pale fish park fish Saves this day from death’s vagrom fingers mud fish lost fish selfish gloom & sad This poet is a master in the use Rockers and Mods of self-regard. “acres of clams” Thank God none of those who read my poems don’t see me What such poems “mean” isn’t readily subsumed Don’t realize I’m crazy, what book shall I carry As one might guess of a Whalen text, it’s full by statements, for their import is as much encoded with me of surprises, for instance, how fast he moves from in the play (or methodology) as in a topic, in this Lonesome for my own handwriting the stiff early poetry (“Frosted glass alone can case the “ecology” of one’s relations—selfishness screen / The intimate from being seen”) to the fol- (shelfishness?) and love. Whalen concludes playfully, A year among strangers, the Japanese all are lowing stanza in 1955, his mature style seemingly “Although your name doesn’t show here / I haven’t mad full-blown: forgotten you.” And it’s crucial to underscore that They look at me, can’t forgive me for being F playfulness, for his achievements often result from funny-looking Train this sense of play, for instance, in flexibility of line Absolutely stoned and richness of tone. That one’s eating buttered toast in a way I never Rocking bug-eyed billboards WAFF! One might object the approach is indulgent. saw No more bridge than Adam’s Whalen does at times settle too easily for the next anybody eat anything. off ox line, and the work is uneven. But that’s one cost This is vintage Whalen—the rushed phrasing, stud- 2 Pouring over 16 /3ds MPH sodium- of experimentation, and what initially seems the ded with details, weird observations, marvelous word extreme of self-expression—anything goes (and it choices, and willy-nilly way he leaps line to line. Vapor light yellow light does)—actually involves attending closely to one’s One could read the slightly paranoid, cranky stuff mind. Like Snyder—and many of this generation— at face value, as representing Whalen, but the ironic LOVE YOU! Whalen had a life-long involvement with Buddhism, opening ploy, the hyperbole and double negative act The poetic here engages and moves with—rather and that interest proves decisive. The speaker’s role is as signals. In Whalen’s work such renditions actu- than restricts or steps back from—its content. One self-reflexive, dual, the agentive “I” and experiencing ally indicate the lyric subject itself—the speaker—is can literally feel the involvement. Whalen explained “I” both given mediating roles. That opens a second under scrutiny, namely, whether or not the self is point. There’s a great deal of listening in this work, once he’d had a breakthrough on peyote at about reliably representing the world; obviously, it’s not. and no one since Williams has a better feel for the this time; the stanza testifies to that. But he was al- As obviously, that playfulness is critical to the cir- vernacular. ways headed for that openness. As Scalapino notes cumspection underway and responsible for the rich (in Overtime), Whalen’s the most innovative of the What do I care my old leaves crack textural layering of the work. This poet is a master Beats, experimenting with genre, mode, plot, page, and wrinkle, bent flat broke and killed against in the use of self-regard. topic, style, voice—in fact, nothing literary remains the windows. sacrosanct in what might be termed the interrogation In such terms, Whalen’s poetry can be read as a of self and subjectivity that is Whalen’s work. prolonged study of the instability of the speaker or What’s especially interesting about the poems Bruce Holsapple works as a speech-language pa- an innovation on the lyric subject, presenting ways is that they’re rarely organized at a thematic level thologist in central New Mexico. His poems have to transcend limitations inherent in “I.” As he writes (problem and resolution). Whalen famously talks of appeared in The Poker, House Organ, Blue Mesa, to in 1960: his poetry in 1959 as “a picture or graph of a mind and First Intensity. A long essay on Philip Whalen moving,” a comment typifying one aspect of the shift you must break yourself is forthcoming in Paideuma. He is the editor of Vox in sensibility under way, for he moves from a plotted, to create anything, this I, this self, holes have to Audio.

Page 2 L American Book Review Co m p l e t e Mi n d Sam Truitt

her 1982 Code Poems (based on the Signal Code performances) evokes this in a question central to Ha n n a h We i n e r ’s Op e n Ho u s e phenomenology and to reading: “When does it or you begin?” Hannah Weiner But practically speaking, dislocation figures Edited and Introduced by Patrick F. Durgin most in the logistical fact many of her books are out Kenning Editions of print, even while most of her production was still http://www.kenningeditions.com in manuscript or notebooks when she died. Imme- 178 pages; paper, $14.95 diately, Hannah Weiner’s Open House—which the editor Patrick F. Durgin calls “a representative selec- tion spanning her decades of poetic output”—goes some way toward rectifying that. Coupled with the “Early and Late Clairvoyant Journals,” also edited by The sentence is always interrupted. Durgin and available online through UC-San Diego’s Mind 1 that speaks out loud, or writes, is Archive for New Poetry, there is now some initial interrupted by mind 2 that is simultaneously basis to pattern a “whole” Hannah Weiner, though not preparing the next sentence or answering an “un-split” one (“self” meaning at its root “apart”). Detail from cover a question. Therefore the correct form to Both Hannah Weiner’s Open House and the journals represent both minds or the complete mind, include welcome introductions by Durgin, with the late-sixties literary journal 0-9, edited by Vito Ac- is an interrupted form…. My writing above former leaning toward her work’s context while the conci and Bernadette Mayer. With Mayer, Weiner’s and below the line incorporates some of this more discursive online one poses a critical reading works in turn have been reckoned one of the cardinal simultaneity. Linear writing must leave out emphasizing in part her unique ability. Both include bridges between the sixties’ poetry scene in New many simultaneous thoughts and events. I a compass of critical writings on Weiner, which, York and the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E movements am trying to show the mind. while all terrific, reveal a relative paucity in light of (indeed, Charles Bernstein is her estate executor): —Hannah Weiner, her importance. Much remains to do. In that one might persuasively pose that aspects of “Mostly About the Sentence” New York (School) performance art carried into (with Andrew Schelling) A great boon of Hannah Weiner’s letters literally—not literarily, if such distinction Open House lies in gathering her may hold—set L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E’s key or at An artistic statement accompanying the an- least its New York timbre. In terms of contemporary nouncement for “Hannah Weiner at Her Job,” a 1970 career-wide formal inflections in one importance, Durgin himself posits that Weiner’s performance series, begins: “My life is my art. I am place for the first time. “influence can be seen today in the so-called ‘New my object, a product of the process of self-awareness.” Narrative’ work stemming from the San Francisco The performances took place in New York’s Garment Working near the end of the age of formal Bay Area,” while in turn the current “non-creative” District where she then worked part-time as a lingerie manifestos—from Karl Marx’s to Joseph Buey’s writing tranche bears her mark. designer and consisted of a sale of such garments on 1970 signing of George Maciunas’s 1963 Fluxus This play of lineage, however, pales to what is three successive Wednesdays in March. The piece “Manifesto”—Hannah Weiner took the “time and spoken to our own immediacy out of Hannah Wein- had to do with the making (and so poeticizing) of a energy” economy of her performance art to expose er’s writing, and a great boon of Hannah Weiner’s living: “Art is live people,” she writes. “The bikini what such a “making a living” might mean in the Open House lies in gathering her career-wide formal pants I make sell for 49¢ and $1.00. If things can’t quickness (in multiple senses) possible to word inflections in one place for the first time. It signals be free, they should be as cheap as possible. Why works: How such might make a self and how we another way in which Hannah Weiner overwhelms, waste time and energy to make expensive products are each a “manifest” when our attention is there. as reading one scrambles to place the leaps between, that you waste time and energy to afford?” Follow- There is certainly a transfer of sixties’ art processes: say, the leeching of text by number sets in “The Zero ing a short professional biography, listing the sites Hannah Weiner’s use of found objects (“WORDS One,” significantly with the first-person pronoun for her Code Poem Events (pieces enlisting nautical I see”); collaboration (her voices); “happening” “I” displacing the number “1,” treating the Mayan International Signal Code Flags), the announcement forms, mimicking natural operations (chance) as genocide in Guatemala; her meditation “Written gives a phone number, “for further information.” At they apply to mind’s nature but distinct from John In” (subtitled “Written in a blank book called Homo 8:32 AM, Monday, June 18, 2007 (37 years and some Cage, say, in her use of achingly personal material; Futurus by Barbara Rosenthal”) on the “bound” months late), I tried it, and a machine answered in the and immediacy, so that the act of writing/reading book— voice of a seemingly young woman, and reiterating is integral to what is written/read. Particularly, the Not to tease the mind the phone number went on: “If you’d like to leave a last attribute gives her work a counter-intuitively Not to blip the alpha wave message after the beep, please do so. Thank you.” (I nonliterary (and so in part contemporary) edge. Her Not to challenge the language did this so that you wouldn’t have to.) writing projects offer almost no rhetorical points of Just get from side to side To write about Hannah Weiner is overwhelm- purchase, and it is not naiveté on the part of Weiner, Get to another bottom ing, principally due to dislocations, including the a Radcliffe graduate, but of utility, eschewing dis- Realize limits temporal one above. In part, her aberrant sensory traction: A poetics of immediacy—one might even ON THIS PAGE and thinking process in roughly the last third of her posit of “ternality,” as from her writing there is no life (from the early 1970s to her death in 1997), turning (in or out), except to face the con implicit to —a work set by Durgin as Weiner typewrote it (as diagnosed with schizophrenia, makes this so. This language itself—such a strain patent, say, in Herman is “The Zero One”), respecting those occasions in period covers her main writing period (following Melville’s 1851 letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne that which her work as formed through act are naturally on her sixties’ performances), making “split mind” concludes: “Take God out of the dictionary, and you inviolate; her late-70s series Little Books/Indians, the easy and uneasy radical, or “root” (as in “rad- would have Him in the street.” happening (as in Cagian) transcripts of what Weiner ish”), through which her work is ungrounded, or That’s in Weiner’s simple statement, “My life saw on the page in her synesthetic clairvoyance as exposed. In fact, one historical reading might posit is my art,” but again the unique vector she took to its well as literally on the inside of her forehead, set in that “Hannah Weiner at Her Job” marks the begin- radical limit seems to lie in part in “self-awareness” nervy, paratactic, and tightly enjambed sans-punctu- ning of her turn into radical “self-awareness,” which as process, the product of which, “my object,” is “I ation (or what might slow and so lose razor breadth began with the first of her early journals in October am.” In this objectiveness, words lose intermedial- of breath) jolts, so that the mediums (including our of 1970. From around that date, her art bears almost ity: If “I am” is an object, who is writing “I am”? selves) have no place to go it is so close; and the exclusively on written compositions—performances Exploding that, text becomes flat, and rather than psyche-raking groundwork of Clairvoyant Journal of self—and since near coincident with the start of proving the world so, it forces a reader into her or his 1974: March–June Retreat, which is among the her hearing and seeing things, including eventually own curvature, albeit “does it or you begin?” Such twentieth century’s last revolutionary sustained acts words, which became integral to her clairvoyant (or language-squashing works may be found in a boarder of conscious composition. in her own words “clair-style”) writing, they are company of artists local to her scene; for example, collaborative, too. The text of the cover image of in Ugly Duckling Presse’s recent compilation of the Truitt continued on next page

July–August 2008 Page 3 L Truitt continued from previous page

In this clairvoyant work, coming after and to is reminiscent of Stéphane Mallarmé’s “space” or it and us. But erasure is involved: burs (words) and a certain extant fulfilling the early journals, Weiner espacement. As readers, this includes each of us, who blurs (sentences). But what if mind is a series of inter- works out the “self-awareness” methodology through are overwhelmed. “I am” is. “To overwhelm” means ruptions (attempts to render which typographically which Little Books/Indians, among other later works, commonly to overthrow, or turn upside down, but result in intercessional and slashing/slanting words was realized. In the excerpt above from “Mostly the Middle English word whelmen from which the between and through fragments) is a reader reading? About the Sentence,” which Durgin terms “Han- verb derives means itself on its own “to turn upside If Weiner is transcribing text as found objects (via eye nah’s major statement of poetics” (albeit perhaps down.” As a verb, to say a thing overwhelms, then, and ear), could one say that in fact she is rendering a sanitized by Andrew Schelling), she relates that equals “to turn upside down over”—like taking, say, manifest of her reading? If so, where and so what is her interest in Clairvoyant Journal was to render what we each see in a mirror of our eyes and face the mind in this phenomenological transaction? “complete mind”—an awesome artistic ambition, and becoming the mirror seeing ourselves. In spatial Concretely, I would say that for Weiner her “ob- like unified field theory. Her attempt, though, distinct terms, this would be an operation of taking what ject of imitation” is metaleptically the page—or as I from Nikola Tesla, is not to bring together disparate is (which already in words is a turn, or tropic) and quote above, “realize limits / ON THIS PAGE.” In observations but to “split” that to which we assume pass it through a flip, returning “it” as it was, though imitation lies mind’s infinity, contextualized as ran- a unity: As she relates, “mind 1” from “mind 2,” and charged (more than changed) through that act. Words domness (chance potentiality) versus a fixed pattern. so on, with the assumption of a multiplicity of minds are words, so it is implausible to identify a change on Such calls again to Mallarmé and his “ONE TOSS in the hive of an invisible becoming. In “The words a surface except “self” (“I am”) reflexively, but it is OF THE DICE,” a work of conscious composition in CAPITALS and underlines are words I see,” an related to location, a flip-split. To call theClairvoy - that started the last century: artistic statement Durgin places as an entry to the ant Journal overwhelming, then (and revolutionary FROM THE DEPTHS OF A SHIPWRECK volume’s ten-page Clairvoyant Journal selection, in this specific sense), means that there exists in it, she states: “I am trying to understand through my as well as in later works emerging along its vector, WHETHER continued writing which of these WORDS I see are something topical, as of the Greek “place.” It is the 1) my own ordinary conscious thought; 2) from my nature of that topicality, achieved overwhelmingly, the developed superconscious mind which has precogni- that interests. tive, clairvoyant powers; 3) telepathic connections One way to touch on that is through the 1980 with living people; 4) BIG QUESTION communica- essay “Language-Centered” by Jackson Mac Low, Abyss tions from non-living forces.” While to “understand” Weiner’s colleague and friend. In this, he proposes such might lie outside the text, what we have in that the consciousness-bearing load of a literary Clairvoyant Journal are records of sessions in which product is “perceiver-centered,” suggesting that the mind of the reader is a work’s “object of imitation.” she seeks to render meticulously what she experi- whitened ences in her mind in language as they bear. There are He posits: “There is certainly a sense in which per- three text streams woven like French braids, though ceivers are perceiving their own minds at work when becalmed not symmetrically (what is the shape of the mind?), they sense meanings in these verbal works.” A poem, identified in part by typography: the capitalized then, might operate to objectify mind—and perhaps furious words are those Hannah Weiner saw in her forehead to do so completely—as an act (performance) in a (from inside her mind); in italics, a second heard temporal (and so entropic) field. Or following on under an inclination voice; and in regular type, her own voice. The three “energy,” from the Greek word meaning “at work,” glides desperately voices may be further identified, as Weiner does, by one might place such a perceiver-centric stance as with wing quality, wherein the first tends to order and advise (a enargia, in the Greek meaning “shining” (“visible, futurity); the second, to comment (a reflexive past); palpable, manifest”), employed as a rhetorical term —wherein those words’ spacing “is” is. In Clairvoy- and the third, her own voice, to relate what’s on her for “visually powerful, vivid description which ant Journal, you can almost talk over the waves to mind (at present), noting it describes more often than recreates something or someone, as several theo- Weiner in the clarity of a spatial music that is the not what is happening as she writes in her environ- rists say, ‘before your very eyes’; vigorous ocular magic of a secret world—its recognition launching ment, including riffs off the voices occurring in/to demonstration.” Similar to ekphrasis, the description toward that simultaneity that is immediate apprehen- that, viz. her May 4th entry: of a static object, such as a work of art, enargia is sion—of the splashes, spurts, and blurs words and the differentiated by its characteristic immediacy, as of phrases they constellate co-hear, weave, out of and in HANNAH THIS IS THE BEST PAGE a sudden confrontation. While it may in language time. They imitate energy: frame our own. The root HANNAH THIS IS MAY appear phenomenally, word to word, in time, enargia topicality of Weiner’s experiment/experience is that. denotes the sudden—its operation more a process of Weiner sees energy, and its rendering into enargia M 4 p 2 catching up to a moment than refusing sand grains that which overwhelms, the time of which words no sex appeal 3 more ears into a mirroring description. Along with its visual mark, reflecting “self-awareness,” a flicker (splash, realize write something you are documenting registry—the fact of Weiner’s synesthetic ability (“I spurt, and blur). it you hear GINSENG over the SEE WORDS”)—it is the above-quoted “speed I was Or this is a reading, partial and un-split, which seeing things” suddenness that I would distinguish radio rather than see it You buy a plant is never whole because always a start, or natural as enargic. that flashed even after it said IT WAS (natus, “born”). And there remains much to say to But what occurs to Mac Low’s reader “perceiv- JUPITER the fire. I would only add what Bernadette Mayer ing their own minds” if the “object of imitation” is A WARNING you’ve been up since 7 and told me in conversation some months back: “Hannah “complete mind” and so includes them? The tran- haven’t stopped yet did what she did so that we don’t have to.” She was scriptive process itself is plausible (even clear and referring in part to what I would read as Weiner’s What is striking is that while the distinctions cogent): It is the fact of its execution (Weiner’s “abil- wheel of root, extremity, and pain (with the last term that allow for the text appearances are unique to her ity,” as Durgin emphasizes), including the necessary somewhat complicated), but what is important is for particular synesthesia, as perhaps hearing voices with attention to catch and render it, and its result (our each in and on his or her own to locate “what she its schizophrenic tag is not so much, what those (dis) reading, and perhaps inability) that is complex—and did.” In her Hannah Weiner’s Open House, a way abilities make possible is common: Namely, we have from a normative purchase perhaps infinitely so. there is now here to find. competing thoughts (voices), the distinction of which What characterizes Clairvoyant Journal, and we have managed to suppress (reminiscent of Little much of what followed of her work, is that its read- Books/Indians, with its “I” for 1, our Western acro- ing requires a similarly enargic immediacy. First, her nym for a totality). In fact, Weiner’s tri-vocal form writing’s flat surface, absent mimicry—it doesn’t may even be grossly Freudian, though what belies recall—makes this so, continually subverting out- this is Weiner insistence on another possible verbal ward reflection. The writing is non-referential in a stream, viz. “somehow I forgot, ignored or couldn’t substantive way: You can, for example, switch out cope with in the speed I was seeing things, a fourth many proper and improper nouns without diminution voice, underlined capitals.” of information. Switch but not reverse, because work What also interests is that the number of voices is being done here and so occurs in entropic irrevers- Sam Truitt is the author of Vertical Elegies 5: The (three or four—or fourteen or twenty-six) is seem- ibility. What is transmitted in an enargic word grid is Section (University of Georgia Press), Anamorphosis ingly immaterial to her task of poeticizing “complete energy (including our own) as the information worth Eisenhower (Lost Roads), as well as the forthcom- mind.” What “appears” key is the splits between locating and reading. While one might posit then that ing Vertical Elegies: Three Works (Ugly Duckling minds through which flares the work potential on words interrupt—or as she writes, “The sentence is Press), and Street Mete: A Work in Vertical Elegies a temporal energetic field, which in textual poetics always interrupted”—they don’t because they hold (Palm).

Page 4 L American Book Review Th e Cr a z y Wi s d o m Sc h o o l Kirby Olson

Trungpa was a cult leader, especially in the wake of the 1978 People’s Temple suicides. Al l e n Gi n s b e r g ’s Bu d d h i s t Po e t i c s Ginsberg’s later poems in defense of pedophilia Tony Trigilio are perhaps suggested or countenanced by the sexual excesses of his guru. Is Crazy Wisdom a poetic li- Southern Illinois University Press cense that allows Sadism and pedophilia? Is there a http://www.siu.edu/~siupress legacy of this in this tradition? If you stick with the 288 pages; cloth, $45.00 Buddhist clause alone, there is much to wrangle with in terms of the title of this book. Ginsberg defends the poets’ aristocracy, and also the right of gurus (and presumably great poets) to strip and humiliate and ’s Naropa Institute—a Buddhist even kill whom they please in the name of wisdom. poetry college in Boulder, Colorado—was the focus Trigilio relies heavily and insightfully on Ginsberg’s of investigations within the poetry community of the diary entries and interviews from the period. This is late 1970s by the poet as well as Edward Ginsberg talking to Tom Clark about Naone in Boul- aggression toward Buddhism—his attempt to use this Sanders, , Gary Snyder, Robert Bly, and der Monthly: “In the middle of that scene, to yell ‘call great tradition as a puppet master might—needs to many other important figures in the poetics commu- the police’ do you realize how vulgar that was? The be carefully positioned when we think of Ginsberg nities of the US. The crisis in which W. S. Merwin Wisdom of the East was being unveiled, and she’s as a “Buddhist.” and his girlfriend Naone were forcibly stripped going, ‘call the police!’ I mean, shit! Fuck that shit! Chapter 4: The use of LSD as sacrament. Gins- at a closed session Halloween evening 1976 with Strip’em naked, break down the door!” berg’s attempt to introduce LSD into America as a the Tibetan guru Chögyam Trungpa at Snowmass, The author does stipulate that Ginsberg’s Bud- sacrament, as a way to get to know God, resulted in Colorado darkened the reputations of both Naropa dhism is light years from Gary Snyder’s, but he does probably hundreds of thousands of deaths and serious and Ginsberg. The incident has never been studied in so only glancingly and never sketches out fully in mental illness for millions of youth. Ginsberg’s at- an academic treatise. Merwin’s girlfriend Naone was what these differences consist. But he doesn’t sketch tempt to ally LSD use with Buddhist practice, again, subjected to racist taunts by Trungpa, and was thor- out for us the differences that matter either. It is hard would hardly be condoned by the Dalai Lama or other oughly humiliated. Tom Clark and others’ journalistic to imagine the Dalai Lama forcibly stripping women high figures within Buddhism. One of the author’s interventions have been out of print for a decade at while dead drunk on a Halloween night in 1976, and it central contentions is that Buddhist practice attempts least, but they are still available through interlibrary is hard to imagine him condoning such a practice. to do away with the subject. LSD also decentralizes loan. Trigilio takes in not only the incident itself, but The second chapter deals with Ginsberg’s Gay and can certainly speed up this process. Yes, but draws out its implications for Ginsberg’s poetry: Dharma. This chapter needs to show a more complete so fast? Many Buddhist practitioners have warned investigation of the acceptance of homosexuality He [Trungpa] ordered student William against shortcuts. within Buddhism. Most of the major religions frown McKeever to bring Merwin and Naone Chapter 5: “The Mugging.” This is perhaps the on the practice. Does Buddhism accept homosexual- from their quarters to be stripped. They most complete treatment of any one of Ginsberg’s ity? refused. Their telephone lines were poems. It is not usually considered a major poem, but disconnected, and crowds of Trungpa’s it is a tremendously interesting one. The author leaves students gathered in the hallway and Ginsberg’s aggression toward much out of the poem. Ginsberg is mugged by Puerto balcony outside their room, effectively Buddhism needs to be carefully Rican kids outside of his own residence. That they trapping Merwin and Naone in their liv- were Puerto Ricans in itself is interesting but is not ing quarters. positioned when we think of even mentioned by the author. The neighborhood is Trigilio continues, “Snowmass exerted a sig- Ginsberg as a “Buddhist.” Spanish-speaking. Ginsberg ends up seeking help in nificant effect on Ginsberg’s poetics, causing him to a “bodega,” Spanish for grocery store. The economic question whether, as a disciple of Trungpa, he actu- Chapter 3: Trungpa as father, and the Oedipal climate of the Lower East Side in the seventies is ally had allied himself with ‘Hierarchical secrecy’ connotations. The author does a very good job tracing one in which great numbers of impoverished gangs against candor, in this case, candor as represented Louis Ginsberg as poet and father, but since Louis terrorized Ginsberg’s neighborhood. While Ginsberg both by Clark’s efforts as a journalist to uncover the Ginsberg was not a Buddhist, does this belong in this gets mugged, he chants to try to calm the kids. In- truth of the event and at the same time by Ginsberg’s book? What does belong is a serious and prolonged stead, this pisses them off, and they threaten to kill efforts to expose Clark’s ‘spite’ in doing so.” look at Trungpa. Trungpa’s life is well-recorded. him if he doesn’t shut up. The comedy of Ginsberg’s This key moment in Ginsberg’s life brings to a He drove a motorcycle and injured himself severely misapplication of the mantra nearly results in a final crisis point the values of Ginsberg’s particular “Bud- in his youth. He had a record of severely abusing tragedy. This time Ginsberg himself is more than dhism,” and also shows his response in the one true women and also horses. He drank himself to death willing to talk to the police: in his early forties. He was not older than Ginsberg. public crisis in which he was not the one pointing External surveillance fails—the police If anything, Ginsberg was the elder, and certainly the finger. do nothing—and internal surveillance Ginsberg had the more authority as a poet. Trungpa’s The serious wounds that Merwin inflicted on prevents the neighbors from endangering fame is as a guru. I don’t know of anyone aside Trungpa’s soldiers required six hundred stitches themselves by volunteering as witnesses. and also a helicopter to a hospital. Trigilio does from Ginsberg himself who took or takes Trungpa seriously as an English language poet, or would use Seen now as an other, the speaker, as specify that Ginsberg’s Buddhism wasn’t just any Trungpa’s poems as the basis for their own poet- a crime victim, is dislocated from the Buddhism—it was the Crazy Wisdom School. What ics. Ginsberg’s sources are deep in the English and spatializing identity of his own neighbor- is this school? What are its strengths and weaknesses? American tradition: Charles Reznikoff, Walt Whit- hood…. Officers help the speaker search The author says at one point that Ginsberg received man, William Blake. Trigilio skillfully discusses that for his wallet using a flashlight that is the admonition to go ahead and practice violent sex tradition but often implies that Trungpa’s influence “broken” with “no eyebeam.” from his guru. Can you imagine the Dalai Lama going is equal to or greater than these. ahead with such permission? Trigiolio writes, There is a sense in which Ginsberg tried to build Harold Bloom’s anxiety of influence model re- a Buddhist poetics based on the breath-line. This has Trungpa’s sexual harassment of Naone quires a STRONG POET. Trungpa is hardly a strong an antecedent in ’s work, but Ginsberg was worsened by his race-bating of her, as poet. He is, however, a recognized figure within a tries to synthesize this work with Buddhist practice an Asian woman involved with an Anglo STRONG TRADITION. Ginsberg—a Jew on the lam and with “mindfulness.” man. Trungpa was drunk that night, and from Judaism—was trying to find a strong tradition. The author attempts to understand Buddhist the Buddhist community knew him as an But he also wanted to subvert it. Trungpa, a weak man aesthetics especially in the line of poetics and es- alcoholic. Therefore, it should come as in a strong lineage, was probably the most likely guru pecially within the Tibetan tradition, or the Crazy no surprise that with Trungpa’s erratic for him. The Dalai Lama would have put Ginsberg in Wisdom School. The attempts to link it to Blake have and dangerous behavior, the Buddhist his place, as would Gary Snyder’s teachers, and the community was beginning to suggest that outcome might have been much different. Ginsberg’s Olson continued on next page

July–August 2008 Page 5 L Olson continued from previous page

already been done, and are recuperated throughout. would also be interesting to see the Orientalism of the does much to put the issue back on the map, but fails But Blake isn’t Buddhist. My question is whether 1960s and 1970s literary worlds in which Ginsberg to reveal the shortcomings of either variety of 70s Ginsberg ever seriously leaves the Western frame- put his money on Tibet while most of the Tel Quel Orientalism. work. Even in late works he still uses the term School of Paris (, Philippe Sollers, “Gnosticism,” as a description of his work. Since , ) put their money on the Gnostics do believe in God, albeit a completely Maoist China. Kirby Olson is the author of Andrei Codrescu & the unbalanced and vicious one, I find it hard to put this Ginsberg’s choice remains timely as we watch Myth of America (McFarland, 2005) and Gregory together with the Buddhist call to peace. The conten- with horror as Tibetan citizens are beaten and si- Corso: Doubting Thomist (Southern Illinois Uni- tion that Ginsberg is an Orientalist in ’s lenced by Chinese communist soldiers who continue versity Press, 2002). He is currently an associate terminology needs to be taken more seriously, but it to try to erase Tibet as a cultural entity. This book professor of humanities at SUNY-Delhi.

An t h o l o g y Is s u e s Amber Dermont

exciting and engaging new biannual publication but nearly all, like Dixon’s “Memoir,” are primarily focusing entirely on short fiction. Issue 1 ofAvery is concerned with domestic relationships. Av e r y : an attractive collection of nineteen stories, each with The strongest stories in this anthology make An An t h o l o g y o f Ne w Fi c t i o n original artwork by Seth Sanders. Much like Story their own rules and create their own worlds but still Edited by Stephanie Fiorelli, Adam Koehler, magazine, Avery, according to the editors’ note, is carry some form of literary influence. Dean Bakopou- and Andrew Palmer committed to publishing “established, emerging, and los’s “The Importance of War” is the canary diamond overlooked authors.” The of the collection—a bril- Avery House Press elder statesman of this in- liant, golden gem that http://www.averyanthology.org augural edition is the pro- combines the fever dream 248 pages; paper, $10.00 lific Stephen Dixon whose of Denis Johnson’s hal- story, “Memoir,”—written lucinatory lyricism with ironically and playfully in the worldly weightiness When Story magazine ceased publication in the the third person—estab- of a Tim O’Brien war winter of 2000, the world of short fiction lost one of lishes an editorial prefer- story. At only three pages the best forums for showcasing work by emerging ence for the postmodern, long, the story artfully and established authors. Over the course of its nearly the experimental, and, illustrates the powers of seventy-year history and in its various incarnations, perhaps unexpectedly, narrative compression the editors of Story magazine consistently discovered the domestic. “Memoir” and the potent imme- an impressive array of new voices from J. D. Salinger explores a dying man’s diacy of conflict. When and Truman Capote to Junot Diaz and ZZ Packer. attempt to type up the the soldier/narrator sug- Story magazine favored those writers who embraced story of his life while gests, “‘Nothing beauti- the challenges and rewards of the short form over the imagining a world after ful comes from Ameri- glitz and financial glory of the novel. The magazine his death. “Resumes typ- ca,’” we understand why boasted a literary and a general readership—my ing: ‘He’s very sick, that’s he would say this, but, dentist subscribed—significant circulation and dis- all. Doesn’t want to die based on Bakopoulos’s tribution, and, through its contests and honorariums, but knows he will in a few dazzling prose, we can’t generous compensation for its authors. In short, Story weeks. That’s how bad off help but disagree. In Joy magazine was responsible for discovering and sup- he is. How advanced his Castro’s assertive “A Fa- porting numerous careers, for creating a far-reaching illness is. He’s going to vor I Did,” the narrator’s literary community, and for serving as a reliable ar- miss so much.’” Though bold sexual frankness re- biter of taste. Though numerous literary publications Dixon is known for his metafictional extravagance, calls the work of Mary Gaitskill and Antonya Nelson, have emerged since Story folded, no single journal his stories are ultimately grounded by the challenges but where those authors sometimes tease, Castro liter- has picked up the mantle in support of short fiction, and limitations of familial and sexual relationships. ally grabs hold and doesn’t let go as when the female in fact many periodicals—The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, One of Avery’s strengths editorially is that nearly all narrator acknowledges to her fellow waitress how she Esquire, Redbook—have either pulled back on their of the stories share a kindred connection to the spirit paid for her Mercedes and ends her confession with a publication of short fiction, limited their fiction to a if not the letter of Dixon’s work, and the anthology display of physical power, “I leaned closer, gripping as a whole serves as a kind of testament to Dixon’s single special issue, or eliminated it all together. her head the way a man grips a woman’s.” Ander legacy. Maybe future issues will be organized around Monson’s “Five Submerged Missives” is a dreamy, a similar principle showcasing different established gorgeous anti-love love story. “Think this is a kind The great pleasure is in seeing how authors and the writers they’ve influenced. of love. A sample. Interest without the obligation of a the short fiction tradition is built As a rule, the stories in this anthology are kiss.” Monson’s sectioned structure evokes but does unusually short and compressed. Of the nineteen upon, skewed, and subverted. not merely imitate the pointillism of William Gass’s collected, twelve are under ten pages, and only two “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country.” Leigh are over twenty pages. There is a clear preference Newman’s “How Monster is Monster?” explores the Short-sighted editors are often blamed for this for first-person narratives—barely a third of the sacrifices a couple living in a tiny apartment makes trend away from publishing short stories, but why stories are told in third person—and most of the when they combine their domestic lives. The monster not raise the question of whether or not short fiction first-person narrators are heavily voiced and stylized. is an inherited antique dresser that takes on the same has done enough to attract and sustain a committed Chad Simpson’s “Tell Everyone I Said Hi” offers a power and heightened symbolism as John Cheever’s and enthusiastic audience? Does short fiction mat- heartbreaking insight into the first-person musings own enormous radio. All of these stories are indebted ter? Is short fiction worthy of a reader’s attention, of a young man abandoned by his love. “I know to the short fiction tradition, but the great pleasure and are writers of short fiction doing enough to at- you don’t set your clocks back. You’re on the other is in seeing how this tradition is built upon, skewed, tract, delight, and provoke an audience? Have short side of that invisible line they’ve drawn in Indiana, and subverted. story writers moved beyond the satisfactions of easy which means it stays lighter there a little longer each In terms of pure storytelling, the most well- epiphanies and clever formal exercises into the realm evening.” Many of the stories seem preoccupied with plotted and satisfying narratives are Curtis Smith’s of narrative innovation? Can a reader still discover the theme of memory and loss, and several, includ- high-school noir, “The Girl In The Halo,” about a something meaningful about the human condition ing Amy Havel’s “Tenth Floor,” Dominic Prezi- missing girl and the boy who may or may not have within the pages of a short story? osi’s “Aftermath,” and Richard Grayson’s “Roman taken her life; Daniel Levin Becker’s romantic mys- The first issue of Avery: An Anthology of New Buildings,” take place in a haunting post-apocalyptic tery of credit-card payments and piano compositions, Fiction edited by Stephanie Fiorelli, Adam Koe- twilight. Most make some nod toward experimenta- “Incidental Music”; and Steven Church’s tale of an hler, and Andrew Palmer brings with it the answers tion either with formal devices, sectioning, sudden to some of these questions and the promise of an point-of-view shifts, fragmentation, or wordplay, Dermont continued on next page

Page 6 L American Book Review Dermont continued from previous page apocryphal Guinness Book of World Record holder, and the reader. Mike Young’s prose poem, “Sunday ethnic and racial diversity matter—I suppose mainly “The Apprentice in Stillness.” All of these stories Morning Spread,” struggles with issues of clarity. The because they point to a potential lack of aesthetic investigate their characters’ obsessions, reveal the line “Marie’s bangs feel like oily spaghetti” begs the diversity, of a narrowing of taste, of a dissatisfying human capacity to simultaneously love and do harm, question to whom? To Marie? To another character? sameness. Though I don’t believe journals or an- and offer surprising twists that are organic to the plot To the reader? A leaner anthology that collected a thologies need to be policed for any kind of specific without any hint of contrivance. These stories trust dozen equally strong stories might have a greater quotas, I do think that a journal that prides itself on the reader enough to resist closure, and, though the impact on a reader. representing “established, emerging, and overlooked stories are conceptually innovative, they are told in The editors’ decision to call Avery an anthol- authors” could easily also pride itself on other types a formally classical manner that heightens the emo- ogy as opposed to a literary journal, especially since of representation. It is up to the editors to seek out tional resonance. Two additional stories that are also none of these stories have been previously published, and showcase as many different voices as possible brilliantly developed and scenically driven, Mary E. strikes me as an unnecessary attempt to heighten the something that Story magazine in its final years took Fiorenza’s “The Woman Who Became Her House” publication’s importance. Anthologies are usually heavily to heart. and Andrew Roe’s “Burn,” bring the reader right up formulated around a theme, an occasion, or a “Best Avery is a worthy publication—worthy of atten- to a precipice of tension and then undermine their of” syndrome. A stronger editorial hand might pay tion, worthy of a readership, and worthy of continued narratives with unnecessary point-of-view shifts. closer attention to why particular stories benefit from support from its benefactors. Readers and writers Only a few of the pieces feel extraneous and being anthologized together. I also couldn’t help but alike should look forward to issue 2. risk detracting from the overall impact of the an- notice that of the nineteen stories included, only five thology. Christian TeBordo’s lyrically titled “Sweet were written by women. I won’t attempt to profile William, Don’t Even Bother Denying It” has bursts the names or bios for race and ethnicity, but let’s just Amber Dermont is an assistant professor of Eng- of disjunctive humor but suffers from a first-person say that there doesn’t seem to be much here in the lish and creative writing at Agnes Scott College in narrator hell-bent on bullying both Sweet William way of diversity. Why do gender disparity and lack of Decatur, Georgia.

Th e Be a u t y o f Ka t a Gabriel Cutrufello

the rituals that represent the only moral and spiritual center of his life. Th e Ye a r s o f Sm a s h i n g Br i c k s : If the Kata is the spiritual center of The Years of An An e c d o t a l Me m o i r Smashing Bricks, then its sensual center is an older woman Louanna whom Katrovas lived with when he Richard Katrovas was nineteen. On first read, this story seems to be on Carnegie Mellon University Press par with the rest of the book; it describes a doomed http://www.cmu.edu/universitypress relationship between the inexperienced and emo- 134 pages; paper, $16.95 tionally immature young Katrovas and Louanna, an older woman whose husband served in Vietnam and returned too emotionally damaged for their marriage to work. By referencing the relationship continually In The Years of Smashing Bricks, Richard throughout the work, Katrovas leaves markers to Katrovas makes use of the sunny and idyllic back- gauge the emotional growth of his younger self. Just ground of Coronado and San Diego to offset this as the book is a series of nonlinear stories, young dark, troubled, and often emotionally (and sometimes Katrovas’s emotional growth and coming of age is physically) painful coming-of-age story. Katrovas also nonlinear. He seems to “learn” a lesson only to calls this work an anecdotal memoir and explains regress in a chronologically later moment. to the reader, “I’ve tried not to embellish too much, though I’ve probably failed miserably at restraining Katrovas at times seems to be dressing a natural inclination to render the world, if not my life, more intriguing than it is.” It is true that Katrovas up over-sentimentalized memories of has a tendency to make the events in the work seem a painful young adulthood with to have more meaning than they probably did at the seemingly profound observations. time, but he does not aim for absolute historical ac- curacy; rather, he is more interested in presenting The continual mention of the older woman in hitting the brick (or rock), he lifts it imperceptibly poignant retellings of those moments in life that hold the novel helps to anchor the tumultuous path that above the ground and brings it down, breaking it. more significance in later retellings than in the initial young Katrovas takes to adulthood. However, the Like this visual trick that Katrovas performs on-de- moment of the events. relationship with Louanna is an unstable one and The work’s nonlinear chronicle of Katrovas’s crumbles apart under the weight of Louanna’s unex- mand at parties, The Year of Smashing Bricks appears late teen and early twenties during a tumultuous time pressed desire for her former marriage and young Ka- to be attempting to trick the reader. At times, it seems in American history is an account full of the misfits, trovas’s blinding libidinal desires. The relationship’s as if Katrovas is dressing up over-sentimentalized dreamers, and burnouts that are woven in and out of instability also comes from Katrovas’s inexperience memories of a painful young adulthood with seem- the various anecdotes. Young Katrovas’s unseemly and the narcissism common to a nineteen year old. ingly profound observations—“In advance of love, in acquaintances are a refuge from his troubled family Katrovas explains, “I loved Louanna in my fashion, anticipation, my heart was already broken, though I life. In his early teens, he and his brother are adopted which is to say obsessively and falsely. I loved my wouldn’t know for years.” However, a thorough read by his father’s sister and spend two years living on idea of loving her, of course, my idea of love, and reveals a deep, emotional resonance with the events a military base in Japan. Katrovas’s home life with therefore I loved only an extension of myself.” As that shaped his life and that mirrored the confusion his adopted-mother/aunt is a torturous place for the anecdotes continue, the young Katrovas begins to of the nation in the early 1970s. him; she is outright hostile and antagonistic to the understand that those around him are not extensions In one particularly memorable passage, young young man, and his stepfather, a low-ranking Naval of himself. This does not mean that by the end of the Katrovas’ coworker and friend Mickey Rutter needs Officer, is fairly distant and offers no guidance or work the young Katrovas fully matures; rather, by the to leave town in a hurry. Like he does with many of warmth for the young man. The only spiritual cen- end, we see a young man who has a better understand- the pieces in this work, Katrovas paints a gritty and ter that young Katrovas can turn to is the Kata—a ing of those around him. If we see Katrovas mature sometimes dim picture of his younger life and the highly ritualized form of karate that he was taught throughout the work, it is by measuring it against his people that he knew. Mickey has gotten an under-age while living in Japan. As the memoir proceeds, the naiveté displayed in this first relationship. girl pregnant and asks their elderly boss Esther for Kata takes a more central role in bringing balance The titular event of the work, young Katrovas’s money. At a seemingly low moment in Mickey’s and to Katrovas’s early years. No matter the emotional ability to “smash” bricks with his bare hands, is turmoil that he experiences, he can always return to shown to be a sleight of hand trick—a moment before Cutrufello continued on next page

July–August 2008 Page 7 L Cutrufello continued from previous page

the author’s life, Katrovas looks out the window to beauty in the world. In large part, his ability to see all that Katrovas has learned in his earlier years and observe the beauty of the ordinary: this “formal beauty” comes from his grounding in the joins them together in a display of fluidity. The Kata Kata. Although the dance requires that the performer represents a series of defenses, attacks, and counter- Outside, through Esther Hale’s window, look inward for the grace and stability necessary to attacks against multiple invisible enemies; the end palm trees swayed in the new light. Mili- perform the dance, it sharpens the performer’s abil- result is a beautiful display of physical prowess. In tary stuff began to grind its portion of a ity to look outward. This ability is Katrovas’s real The Year of Smashing Bricks, Katrovas accomplishes good day down to useable material. Just power as a writer; he is able to see the beauty in the a similar feat; he fluidly combines a variety of events minutes ago, it seemed, our country had tortured and lost people of his early years. and people from his youth to create a series of por- lost a war, or had been lost in it. But this Instead of smashing bricks, the novel performs traits that respond to old hurts and triumphs and was a new day. Lessons had been learned. the Kata dance that young Katrovas returns to resonate with a larger audience. The sky over Coronado was open for busi- throughout the novel. Like the highly stylized form of ness, and no one, not even Mickey Rutter, karate that only those who have mastered the various would miss the formal beauty of it all. moves of karate can perform, The Years of Smashing Gabriel Cutrufello is a graduate student in the In the midst of the repercussions of the Vietnam War Bricks could only be written by someone who has a English Department at Temple University in Phila- and the dubious actions of Mickey, Katrovas sees a keen sense of writing. It is a work that incorporates delphia.

Ta x i n g Ta x o n o m i e s Stephen Burn

works by writers eager to expand upon the reasons to engage more fully with an author’s work, The Top for their selection. Finally, the book includes a 184- Ten becomes a pretty interesting atlas of different Th e To p Te n : page “Guide to the World’s Best Books”—basically a authors’ obsessions. Richard Powers, for example, Wr i t e r s Pi c k Th e i r Fa v o r i t e Bo o k s series of capsule summaries of each of the 544 titles provides not a top ten, but a list of nine books that that the writers cumulatively selected. would have been his top choice depending on his age Edited by J. Peder Zane There are certainly problems with this overall (his top choices are arranged at five-year intervals, Norton design. Zane never makes it clear why running from age 5 to 45). The temporal http://www.wwnorton.com these 125 writers were selected, rather spread is revealing. While Powers at 352 pages; paper, $14.95 than 125 other writers, beyond the fact 20 and 25 favored Joyce’s Ulysses and that they are “leading” and “British and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851), American.” Indeed, sometimes, as you respectively, at 40 and 45, he finds try and trace a thread through the list himself drawn to Charles Dickens’s The millennium, Norman Cohn argued in his of different listing writers, it’s hard to Great Expectations (1860–1861) and classic study, The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957), sense any other connection than that Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918). The had long functioned to provide “consolation and these were the 125 authors who actu- progression from the encyclopedic spirit guidance” for communities wracked by uncertainty, ally replied to Zane’s invitation. More of Joyce and Melville, toward more and desperately desiring some form of closure. Mil- problematic are the capsule summaries, obviously emotive, character-driven lenarians sought not just an end to a world filled with which are probably the weakest part novels, seems to parallel the arc of his frivolous pastimes, but a deeper, more serious, final of the book, comprising the section own work, even down to the fact that accounting: a judgment that would divide good from that looks most like it’s been included to pad the both My Ántonia and Powers’s The Echo Maker bad. Yet, when the millennium arrived, the stars did volume out. It’s almost too easy to make fun of this (2006) take place in Nebraska. not fall through the heavens like fine dust. The righ- endeavor: feel like reading an 88-word summary of The quantitative conclusions of the exercise are teous dead were not resurrected. Hardened sinners Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (1913–1927) also provoking, providing a snapshot of which works were not killed by tempests, floods, or plagues. De- that doesn’t mention Albertine? Maybe a 68-word matter to these contemporary writers. What’s imme- nied a divine accounting, editors and booksellers— summary of William Gaddis’s JR (1975)? Or, bet- diately obvious, however, is that writers are moving who sometimes seemed to be driven by equivalent ter still, an 87-word summary of Finnegan’s Wake deeper into literary history for their selections, rather millennial energies—were forced to act on their own (1939)? Of course such summaries sound awful, and than picking out the works of their immediate literary there are certainly low points. Zane, for example, initiative. As the millennium drew closer, the book ancestors. Most selections are safely from the distant sometimes insists on making his summaries sound list (composed of best books, of must-read books, of past (Anna Karenina [1877] comes top overall), and like commercials for bad movies, so Henrik Ibsen’s most influential books) became their way of ordering there are few works by contemporary writers. In fact, Nora Helmer is recast as “[t]he original desperate and settling the literary past. the recent works that are selected are sometimes sur- housewife.” But really this section of the book is The most famous of these millennial lists was prising: nobody, for example, selected Thomas Pyn- flawed in conception rather than in practice. It’s probably the Modern Library’s selection of the chon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), though V. (1963) hard to imagine any really useful summaries being Twentieth Century’s 100 Best Books in English, did make one list (T. C. Boyle’s). And DeLillo, who compressed in such a short space, and the book would which was topped by James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). is so often said to be the most influential living writer, be stronger without them. There were, however, countless other competing lists, similarly only secures one vote (again, from Boyle). including the American Book Review’s 1999 (20.6) Indeed, as Zane observes, viewed cumulatively, “The response to the limitations of the Modern Library’s With the right writer, the list can be 1920s proved the most popular decade,” which might list in the form of Larry McCaffery’s “The 20th a revealing window on to their suggest the continued hold that modernism has over Century’s Greatest Hits,” a hierarchy of 100 books formative influences. the contemporary imagination. in which Ulysses was edged into second position by Like most lists, then, this book is an uneven Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire (1962). Such lists The lists themselves vary widely, depending affair, gathering together items of vastly different may be, as Don DeLillo has suggested, “a form of upon how seriously a given author took the process. value. But while William Gass, in an essay on lists in cultural hysteria.” Nevertheless, their continued ap- David Foster Wallace’s top ten, for example, seems Tests of Time (2002), has warned that “the comforts peal is demonstrated by the appearance of J. Peder so satirical that it’s hard to imagine him keeping a of mere enumeration are shallow and illusory,” the Zane’s The Top Ten, a book which seems to distill straight face long enough to mail his selection—none strongest part of this book is undoubtedly the mo- most of the list-compiling energies of the millennial of his obvious reference points (Gaddis, DeLillo, ments when writers enumerate the books that have book industry into one volume. Joyce) are present, but in their place there’s Stephen mattered most to them. With the right writer, the The Top Ten is really three different books King, Thomas Harris (twice), and Tom Clancy. Simi- list can be a revealing window on to their formative squeezed together. First of all, it collects the lists that larly, Annie Proulx prefaces her list with the claim influences. give the book its name—a compilation of top ten lists that the entire project is “pointless” and insists that of the “greatest works of fiction of fiction of all time” she’s submitting a list “Just so you’ll give it a rest.” Stephen Burn is the author of David Foster Wal- selected by 125 “leading writers.” Second, there are Reading such lists, then, is unlikely to shed much lace’s Infinite Jest: A Reader’s Guide (Continuum, short essays—three offering a sort of overview of light on the author’s practice. 2003). He teaches English at Northern Michigan the lists, and eighteen “appreciations” of individual Having said that, when the writers’ lists do seem University.

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sensory detail: And even she had withdrawn Th e Hu m a n Li n e to the bright kitchen, to smear a bagel with the pungent white fish spread Ellen Bass she’d begun, in spite of herself, to love. Copper Canyon Press White fish spread is considered a delicacy http://www.coppercanyonpress.org among many Jewish families; it may at first offer 92 pages; paper, $15.00 an alien taste to the woman in orange. The hospital worker, like the reader, finds herself developing a taste and affection for what at first seemed “other.” Ellen Bass’s new volume juxtaposes a variety The Human Line is an apt title for Ellen Bass’s of moods and tones. In section two, we are treated new book of poetry, with its clear, understated dic- to wit and humor. “Asking Directions in Paris” will tion and imagery, its balanced portraits of humans in delight anyone who has ever asked for directions in relationship to each other and the environment. The a foreign country. The Parisian woman seems to the opening poems grapple with the narrator’s mother narrator to be saying: “On the corner / he is a shop of dying. Their lines are rhythmically dynamic and re- jewels in a fountain / when the hotel arrives on short markably unsentimental. Yet, the reader may resist, feet.” To her credit, the author deepens the metaphor having read too many poems by Boomers about dy- at the end of the poem: ing parents. The resisting reader gives in when s/he And as you thank her profusely arrives at the seventh poem, “Last Night.” The direct and set off full of groundless hope, dialogue and the poet’s own first name draw us in: Mom, I try again, lie down. you think this must be how it is Milton or T.S. Eliot. I’ll lie down with Ellen, she says, with destiny: God explaining Poems in the third section enjoy a wide range, a wary edge in her voice. and explaining what you must do, a long reach. “Pray for Peace” is more inspiring to and all you can make out are a few the reader than many a traditional prayer, since its I climb into the narrow bed, unconnected phrases, a word or two, a wave imagery is fresh. But the incantatory power is the my body a breath away from hers in what you pray is the right direction. power of the ancient rhyming thoughts found in oral tradition poetry. Like tribal ancestors, we pray The diction is immediate and stripped of figu- “Gate C22,” the next poem, is sensual and deli- to keep evil away: rative language. Intimacy deepens, between the nar- cious. Once again, the reader has an intimate view: rator and the mother, between reader and poet. The this time, we become spectators along with an airport And if you are riding on a bicycle reader leans in. “The End” repays listening, confid- waiting room filled with people; voyeurs, we are all or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each ing a mortal secret. The poet and her daughter have watching a middle-aged couple make out: revolution poured morphine down the dying mother’s throat: The whole wing of the airport hushed, a prayer as the earth revolves: “And we kept at it together, both of us, / killing her all of us trying to slip into that middle-aged less harm, less harm, less harm as fast as we could.” Poetry is a repository that holds. woman’s body, Bass offers poetry that we need to hear now, The author and the reader rely on each other, trust her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, poetry that renders a complex but accessible portrait each other to contain what has been revealed. little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up. The next poem unmasks an angel of ordinary of what it is to be human. Her poetry consoles and life. Like Marie Howe in What the Living Do (1998), The reader is invited to identify with the woman stands up for what is necessary, nourishing, life- Ellen Bass conveys life-oriented tenderness as part engaged in a long kiss—“tilting our heads up.” Poem enhancing, and just. It is a well-made prayer for peace of grieving and healing: by poem, the reader is being won over by the book. in the guise of art. Next in this entertaining section, “Bone of My And in place of angels Bone and Flesh of My Flesh” deals wittily with the bedizened in silvery wings, conundrum of what to call a same-sex partner when at Marilyn Kallet is the author of Circe, After Hours, just one tired woman the dry cleaner’s: “You don’t want to say, “The light poetry from BkMk Press, and Last Love Poems of in an orange cotton uniform. of my life doesn’t like starch.” “Spouse” is “hideous,” Paul Eluard, translations, Black Widow Press. With This tired woman not only cleaned up after the dying and “partner” sounds “sterile as a boardroom.” Bass’s Kathryn Stripling Byer, she has edited The Move- woman, but had sat by her beside for hours. Bass poem both educates and makes us laugh out loud, able Nest: A Mother/Daughter Companion, Helicon ends her poem about “what the living do” with a which is more than we can say of works by John Nine Editions. FC COLLECTIVE FICTION TWO author-run, not-for- profit publisher of artistically adventurous,2 non-traditional fiction http://fc2.org

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